I received a copy of this letter yesterday but just opened it today because I was out of state almost all of yesterday. I don't think any normal words can describe my reaction as I sit here typing this. I am simply disgusted with the legal system, the corrupt lawyers involved in my case, and the unethical conduct of some Superior Court judges.

Ralph,

Just to bring you up to date, Doyle will be sentenced shortly. I've talked with Van Dyke and we're protected from any damages. We survived Diamond's tape recorded call and the guilty plea being vacated. I've used my influence with the judges involved so there will not be any possibility that Doyle will ever get before a jury. I was quite clear with Paul that any Post Conviction Review must be denied. Even Scott was on board at the Bar. It was unfortunate that Rick told Doyle you would commit perjury at your first opportunity. I was able to have Van Dyke keep Doyle away from your deposition to protect us.

Very frankly, I was disappointed with you. I think you realize the unnecessary jeopardy that your memos to Doyle exposed us to in this case. We were more than fortunate that I had Van Dyke for a client so we could position Doyle for that second guilty plea. Now we just need to put this behind us and let Doyle go to prison.

You should consider retirement before a future misstep gets you disbarred.

The reply dated 6-26-09 from Cabanne Howard, Executive Secretary, for the Committee On Judicial Responsibility and Disability, was the most telling of all the correspondence concerning the DeTroy letter. This is the first time that any government body has acknowledged in writing that DeTroy, was in fact my former lawyer. This was an unsolicited statement that confirms what I have been saying since 1998.

November 5, 2002

Welcome to www.lyinglawyers.com and to my nightmare. My story starts in February 1996 when I received a call from a long time friend and business associate, Randy Garrett, in Houston. He described a joint venture program using leveraged money accounts that were paying over 30% per month. Having never heard of anything even remotely like this I called Michael Murphy, also in Houston and a friend of Garrett's. Murphy, a former V.P. at E.F. Hutton, talked with me for over an hour describing how much he knew about this program and that he was also an investor.

I then referred four clients to Garrett and told them not to invest any money that they couldn't afford to lose, as I still did not know how this would work or if it would work.

By July my clients were receiving 20% per month every month on their money. The clients wanted to invest more money and referred more people to me.

In early October I was contacted by the State securities department to see if I was selling an unregistered security. I called my long time lawyer, Ralph A. Dyer, for advice. This was the beginning of a long slide down a tube greased by my own lawyers using my own money. At this time, following the advice of Dyer and Peter DeTroy of Norman, Hanson, and DeTroy I made eight sales from October 1996 to May 1997. At which point my personal investment in the venture exceeded $102,000.

What followed after May 1997 I would not have believed had it not happened to me. When the venture turned out to be a Ponzi and it collapsed I was horrified and went to Dyer and DeTroy.

DeTroy referred me to his friend Richard Berne, of Berne and LaFond who trotted me up to the State to have me give a statement against myself. I didn't know at the time that Berne was working to help DeTroy avoid a malpractice suit. In Maine if you are guilty of a crime that you committed at the direction of your lawyer you can't sue your lawyer for malpractice, the Moore's decision. Berne's job was to get me to plead guilty as quickly as possible. When that failed and I was indicted for a felony I knew it was time to change lawyers. What happened next is why the saying "out of the pan into the fire" was invented.

I called Jack Simmons, at Berman & Simmons and he assigned me to David VanDyke. VanDyke (now working for Hornblower, Lynch, Rabasco of Lewiston) failed to disclose that he and Peter DeTroy were friends and that he played basketball with Ben DeTroy. For the next three years VanDyke lied to me non-stop while charging me nearly $30,000 to keep Peter DeTroy from being sued by me for malpractice.

After pleading guilty, having it vacated, and pleading guilty a second time, only then did I realize that all my lawyers were helping protect each other at my expense. During this time I read Dr. Joseph Long's letter in the Forecaster and I was suspicious that I might be getting the same treatment from Berne and DeTroy. When VanDyke let slip that Steve Dunwoody and Scott Liberty were getting the same hosing from Berne and DeTroy I was really concerned.

How, you may ask, did VanDyke get me to plead guilty to a felony twice, that I didn't commit? It was a two-stage process. First he lied and said that there were no documents in my file to back up my claim that Dyer and DeTroy never warned me. Without those in hand I would get the maximum sentence from a judge as punishment for calling Dyer and DeTroy liars in open court. Next, VanDyke had no preparation for trial (see his affidavit) and stated "that I could plead guilty today and get 0 to 9 months in the county jail or lose at trial in five days and start a 2.5 year sentence on Friday". With a ten-year-old son at home which would you choose?

Here follows, the documentation from the record both public and private of what happened from May 1997 to September 2002.

January 8, 2004

When I think I have seen and heard every possible way David VanDyke, of Berman & Simmons, of Lewiston, Maine, could screw me, something new always turns up. Recently my court appointed lawyer, Karen Wolfram has forwarded to me the following items: My Second Amended Petition for Post Conviction Review (view document) and The Affidavit of Mary Davis, Esq. (view document), who is my court appointed expert witness. It would seem that VanDyke had me plead guilty to an improper indictment, while performing so far below the level of a normally fallible attorney that he was working from the sub-sub-basement of both talent and ethics We now know why he was so intent on not preparing for trial. A trial he could never conduct properly in my defense without aggressively cross-examining the State's star witness against me, my lawyer, Peter DeTroy, of Norman, Hanson, and DeTroy, of Portland, Maine. VanDyke really needed to browbeat me into a guilty plea on February 12, 2001 (view document) because VanDyke was being sued for MALPRACTICE (view document) beginning in January 2001, six weeks before my scheduled trial. None other than Peter DeTroy was defending VanDyke. See Peter's Plan from the Ralph Dyer memo, which states c. "TELL YOUR CLIENTS THE INVESTMENT IS WORKING". Then DeTroy writes a letter on January 17, 1997 calling the joint venture "a security" while claiming that on the very same day he warned us that it was a Ponzi. It would appear that VanDyke in an effort to save his own malpractice defense wasn't about to grill DeTroy on all the inconsistencies in DeTroy's proffered testimony. How unethical is it for VanDyke to FAIL to disclose that my chief accuser was defending him for MALPRACTICE while he was coercing me into a guilty plea for a crime he knew fully well that I didn't commit (view document)?

August 31, 2005

Justice Paul Fritzsche denied Doyle's Petition for Post Conviction Review to Vacate Doyle's second guilty plea. Click here for some interesting quotes from the witnesses, all attorneys, licensed in Maine, from the transcript of the hearing, followed by quotations from Judge Fritzsche's Order and Decision.

July 10, 2006

It would appear that I may have a chance at a trial without a lawyer that is totally ineffective or providing retroactively created documents to the prosecution. We'll just have to wait and see. (View document)

September 20, 2006

I'm often asked by people, do the lawyers really lie that much? I always respond with you haven't read the web site, have you? Today I went to Court to respond to a contested hearing on being released from probation. Even though I did everything that AAG Nomani stated in her letter that I had to do. (view letter...) After waiting three weeks from the time I paid the restitution and documented my community service final hours, I find out that I had to prove where I got the money to pay the restitution. Even though it wasn't a requirement in Nomani's letter. Nomani was out sick so AAG Leanne Robbin was filling in for her. She just couldn't resist by starting out with this whopper of a lie in the first thirty seconds.

Robbin: "... Miss Ackley requested copies of his income tax returns from Mr. Doyle. Mr. Doyle told her to POUND SAND! ..." (WE ALL KNOW THAT'S THE POLITE VERSION OF F.U. AND NO BETTER WAY TO INFLAME THE JUDGE AGAINST ME.)

Berner: "I'm going to object to that characterization your Honor. That suggests a belligerence on Mr. Doyle's part that I don't believe is appropriate."

Justice Broderick: "Is that an exact quote?"

Robbin: "No, that is not an exact quote. That is a characterization. He said no..."

When Robbin was confronted with the facts of where the money came from she wanted two weeks to "investigate" whether I was lying. She actually refused to call the person right then and there so we could put to rest who was the only liar in the courtroom.

To read the exact words spoken by my lawyer Seth Berner, Leanne Robbin, AAG, and Justice Broderick covering the hearing up to the point where I was asked for the first time where the money came from. (view hearing transcript...)